This intermediate-level workshop will provide quantitative biologists and statisticians with the statistical background to understand the main-stream analyses performed by Program MARK, and the familiarity with the program to perform these analyses. A mixture of lectures and laboratory exercises will be provided. Participants will learn the basics of parameter estimation with likelihood theory, model selection with Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC), and the binomial and multinomial distributions. The Cormack-Jolly-Seber (CJS) mark-recapture, band (tag or ring) recovery, known fate, and closed captures models will be covered in detail. More advanced models will be described so that participants will understand the benefits of these models, but those models would not be covered extensively. Use of covariates, including individual covariates, will be covered with the CJS and band recovery models.

The clientele for this workshop are biologists with experience in the analysis of data from marked animals. The content is aimed at providing the participants with a solid background in the philosophy, theory, and analysis of data from marked animals. This is not a workshop for beginners to this subject.